Conciliator

MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL

By Author

Frankfurt a/Main

1632

FIRST EDITION. Part I (only). Title in Latin and Spanish. Spanish interspersed with Hebrew

Silva Rosa 15

Part I of the work which won Menasseh fame in Christian scholastic circles, Conciliador, poses 180 Questions, or glaring contradictions in the Bible, which the young Amsterdam rabbi deftly reconciles (hence the title “Conciliator”). The work is graced by Haskamoth in Hebrew by the rabbis of Frankfurt, Shabthai (Sheftel) Horowitz, son of Isaiah Horowitz (Shela”h ha-Kadosh), and Aaron ben Samuel Koidanover (author Birkath ha-Zevach). Menasseh’s biographer, Cecil Roth, deems this book as Menasseh’s “magnum opus.” Twenty-eight years old at the time of its publication, Menasseh demonstrated his total conversance with both Jewish and non-Jewish literature, citing 221 Jewish and 54 gentile authors. Some bibliographers assert that the Frankfurt imprint is false and that the work was truly printed in Amsterdam. Roth, relying on the presence of the approbations of the Frankfurt rabbinate, rejects this notion. See EJ, Vol. XI, col. 855; C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel (1945), pp. 87-91; 320, n. 2